Posted on 01/14/2013 4:08:51 PM PST by marktwain
The renewed debate over gun rights that has followed the massacre of elementary schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., has included scrutiny over why gun advocates believe they need a right to bear arms. Among the reasons: Many advocates believe that individual gun ownership helps preserve American liberty, making government fearful of trampling on rights of its citizens. If government goes too far, the argument goes, Americans have the right to revolt by force.
Is that argument correct? Or does it belong to fringe gun enthusiasts?
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldandnews.com ...
Okay, I’ll put you down as in the Might Makes Right camp. Good to know.
Metal detectors weren’t my idea.
.”...metal detectors or armed guards/teachers....”
Metal detectors AND armed teachers.
These will be to the schools attempted massacres as reinforced cockpit doors and noncompliance with hijackers were to attempted airline terrorism.
Keep your powder dry.
The voice of the people HAS been heard, there are now in the hands of law abiding citizens enough weapons to supply the armies of china and India COMBINED.
and they are EVERYWHERE.
Let no man, or group of men -- and certainly no entity of man's making such as government -- oppress or enslave those whom God has created in His own image. It would be a sin. It would be just as great a sin for those who are enslaved to allow it to happen and thus allow a living image of the Almighty to be defiled.
So we have a Divine right, indeed a Divine duty, to throw off any such shackles. The Framers spoke of it in great specificity and referred to it in the Declaration of Independence, as lots of others have pointed here.
The Constitution doesn't give us the right or duty to throw off the chains of tyranny (that emerges from our special relationship with God). The 2nd Amendment merely attempts to guarantee that we'll have the means to do it if it ever becomes necessary. (just my two-cent opinion)
have the right to revolt by force.
Actually, you have the “obligation” to protect that right.
Time to stand up.
We have a permit on the Mn Capitol steps at Noon this Saturday.
Add reinforced doors to the school also
Can't be repeated enough!
I am in Texas.
Austin is 5 hours away.
Will try to get there.
An argument made by none other than Alexander Hamilton.
In Federalist 29, Hamilton says:
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
Hamilton says that the armed militia is a protection against a despotic government using the army to enslave the people.
If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.
I'd argue that we're seeing today the very "wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration." Obama has been itching for a fight, and he's calculated his actions to specifically spite Republicans and prosperous Americans.
Hamilton said, "If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs."
It's not impossible to believe anymore.
-PJ
Also, as I've pointed out before on this forum - remember what happened after Arnold said "I'll be back" in the first Terminator movie. Metal detectors and locked doors won't help against a car.
There are some underlying considerations to this, which have been hashed out by the Supreme Court over many years, leading to some interesting conclusions.
First, the SCOTUS has determined that the US congress has supremacy over the state legislatures, and that federal courts have supremacy over state courts. But they have *never* found that the president has supremacy over state governors.
In practical terms, this means that if a governor *defies* the order of the POTUS, the *only* means the POTUS has to overcome the governor is the “force of arms”.
Most recently, president Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to force integration of the high school, though Bill Clinton’s mentor, governor Orval Faubus, had ordered the state guard to prevent it.
Translate this to today. If Obama ordered unconstitutional gun control by executive order, Republican governors could just reject it, and refuse to allow it to be carried out in their states.
Likewise, the governor could order the arrest of federals who tried to enforce that executive order (which was recently done in Wisconsin, for a different reason.)
Second, county Sheriffs have a unique ability in the law, to invoke posse comitatus, in effect deputizing “every adult person” in the county who can legally be armed.
In effect, Obama would have to order the army to “disarm all law enforcement officers in the county (or state)”, in order to confiscate guns. Not happening.
Likewise, a county Sheriff could also order the arrest of federals who tried to carry out such an executive order.
Which brings up the most important point: since the only way Obama could accomplish his scheme would be to invoke the US Armed Forces, would they obey his commands?
The short answer is no, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t give a right to armed revolt. That right is more fundamental than the 2nd Amendment, because if we didn’t have that right, then we could not make a legitimate constitution, or any legitimate amendments to one. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t actually confer any rights at all, it only compels the government not to trample on some of our pre-existing rights.
Any other approach might could get... messy. IMHO
LOL! The 2nd Amendment doesn't 'give' us anything, it acknowledges a Natural Law Right we already possess.
Mr. Madison has introduced his long expected amendments... The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people.
- Fisher Ames, Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 1789
The Second Amendment is there to give the Declaration of Independence a chance to be used again.
Rope then?
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